Posts Tagged ‘Doug Polk’

As of today there have already been 23 Events completed at the 2017 WSOP with a total Prize Pool of just a shade under 53 million dollars and we’re still not even halfway there, with more than 50 events to go. For those few people that still have no clue just how rich the WSOP payouts are, take this in and wonder no more — thus far the 48th Annual WSOP has paid out more than 10 million dollars in first place prize money alone.

At this point the biggest winner (in terms of $$$) is, by far, Doug Polk who walked away from Event 6 the $111,111 High Roller for One Drop with a sweet paycheck of $3,686,865 and his third Gold Bracelet. Not a bad payday for four days work. You might remember that Lynn “Queen of Hearts” Paris mentioned him in her WSOP Highlights blog just a few days ago.

The following is a list of the current winners that have taken home first place prize dollars along with the coveted WSOP Gold Bracelets.

Bryan Hollis – Event 1 – $68,817

Team Igor Kurganov and Liv Boeree – Event 2 – $273,964

Upeshka De Silva – Event 3 – $229,923

Benjamin Zamani – Event 4 – $238,620

Thomas-Pomponio – Event 5 – $1,000,000

Doug Polk – Event 6 – $3,686,865

Jesse Martin – Event 7 – $130,948

Joseph “ul_gg” Mitchell – Event 8 – $122,314

Abe Mosseri – Event 9 – $388,795

Team Aditya Sushant – Nipun Java – Event 10 – $150,637

David Bach- Event 11 – $119,399

David “Dragon” Pham – Event 12 – $391,960

Frank Kassela – Event 13 – $89,151

David Singer – Event 14 – $203,709

Adrian Mateos – Event 15 – $324,470

Anthony Marquez – Event 16 – $393,273

John Racener – Event 17 – $273,962

Tyler Smith – Event 18 – $244,344

Pablo Mariz – Event 20 – $1,221,407

Ron Ware – Event 21 – $145,577

John Monnette – Event 22 – $256,610

Shane Buchwald – Event 24 – $177,985

There is a lot more ahead. There are still more than fifty Final Tables to be conquered; will you be at one of them? Will you join the group of conquerors of this 2017 World Series of Poker? If you ARE there, don’t forget to take a picture or video holding a sign that has three little words on it – TEXAS POKER STORE – You would make us very happy and we generously reward those who make us happy. Check out the entry details here…

Millions of poker fans look forward to the WSOP every year, and this year is no exception. In fact, with the elimination of the November Nine, the live coverage by ESPN (of the Main Event in July) and the promise of streaming coverage throughout by pokercentral.com, we were even more excited than usual.

So, this has been our experience so far. We quickly learned that pokercentral is offering streaming through their new subscription service, PokerGo. That meant we, and millions of others, had to sign up and pay $10 for a month or $99 for a year. Not bad, but not what we had been led to believe. Plus, it took us about six tries to get the code online to match the code on our TV.

Anyway, on our first night trying to watch Day 4 of the most expensive event on the WSOP schedule, the $111,111 HR for One Drop, we finally had to pause it with two hours to go. The final table was stacked with great players and we were pumped to watch the last two hours. Unfortunately, the navigation was totally off the next night so we couldn’t go back to watch the final two hours – all we could find was a 30-minute highlight video.

The third night (by then we already knew that Polk had beaten Elky in Heads-up play) we figured out the navigation (or PokerGo fixed it; we’ll never know) and we got to watch the handsome Italian, Dario Sammartino bust out in 3rd place, winning $1.6milion, and then the super-charming Doug Polk killing it with some gutsy poker. Second place for Elky was a cool $2.2 mill and Polk won his third WSOP gold bracelet and a whopping $3.6+million.

Meanwhile, I just tried to sign into PokerGO on my laptop as I did yesterday and it tells me that no one with that email address (the one we used for the last three days) is a member of PokerGO. Beyond frustrating. On the third try, it must have recognized me and I was in. Nothing streaming live until tonight but that gave me the opportunity to go to their “On Demand” category and catch some fun moments from a few other events.

I watched Day 4 of what was supposed to be a 3-day event, the $10,000 Omaha Hi/Lo Heads Up, mainly because my all-time favorite, “Real Kid Poker” was going for his seventh bracelet against Abe Mosseri. Both love to play mixed games, which puts me at a real disadvantage; I just learned the rules for Texas Hold’em two years ago so these variants confuse the hell outta me. Anyway, it took about ten minutes for Mosseri to win the bracelet, but Negreanu had a second place finish after a third place the day before so he’s still doing incredibly well.

Then I caught some of the $10,000 Heads Up Event – poker in its purest form, where one player survives the single-elimination event with 128 players in the field. The commentators said the heads-up event was one of the most prestigious at the WSOP, so I decided to watch 22-year old Adrian Mateos face off against 42-year old Negreanu on Day 1, right after DNegs had finished playing in the $10,000 Omaha Hi/Lo Heads Up. This was a really tough first match-up, Daniel didn’t get many good cards and he lost (gracefully and with humor) in the first round.

On the other hand, Adrian Mateos went on to knock off five more players to go up against 70-year-old John Smith in the final round. Smith had been the runner-up in this event last year; I watched his Day 3 match against Ryan Riess and could see that he was a formidable opponent. Nevertheless, Smith ultimately lost to Mateos to be runner-up again. And, Mateos’ win made him the youngest player ever to win three bracelets by the age of 22.

PokerGo has great coverage and extremely knowledgeable commentators and after a few initial glitches has worked out well for us. If you want to know all the results of every event, you can go to pokernews.com or WSOP.com. No point in us reinventing the wheel!

So here we are folks, approaching the end of the 47th Annual World Series of Poker summer events with, of course, the Main Event’s Final Table concluding, as always, in November, with this year’s champion to be determined then. Here’s what has happened since our last report:

Event #59: $5000 No-Limit Hold’em – A 48-year-old amateur from China, Yue Du, walked away with his first gold bracelet and a very nice check for $800,586. Du eliminated Natasha Barbour, who finished in third-place. Barbour collected a whopping $348, 374 dollars, and although she missed out on a gold bracelet, she did collect a ring when her boyfriend, Jason Mercier, proposed marriage in front of the rail.

Event #60: $1500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better was championed by an amateur who just started playing seriously less than a year ago. David Prociak from Kissimmee, FL., pocketed $156,546 along with his first gold bracelet. Not bad after cashing for the third time in a WSOP Event this summer.

Event #61: $1,000 Tag Team No-Limit Hold’em The first-ever tag-team WSOP tournament belonged to Doug Polk, 27, from Las Vegas and Ryan Fee, 28, from Philadelphia. After defeating a field of 863, the teammates collected $153,358 to share and bracelets for both champions.

Jens Kyllonen, the PLO pro from Finland sat down at his first Final Table and won Event #62: $25,000 High Roller Pot-Limit Omaha (8-Handed) and ran off with $1,127,035 and his very first gold bracelet.

Event #63: $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em ended in the pockets of poker pro and well known commentator for the World Poker Tour TV series, Tony Dunst. Tony collected his first gold bracelet and walked away with a big fat check for $339,254.

Event #64: $3000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo Split 8 or Better Kyle Bowker, a 33-year-old poker pro from Walton, NY, defeated a field of 473 hungry players, including himself, and took home his first gold bracelet along with $294,960 for his 35th cash at the WSOP since 2006.

Courtney Kennedy, a 37-year-old poker dealer from Detroit, MI, won Event #65: $10,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Championship along with her first WSOP gold bracelet and a sweet $149,108. Kennedy stated “It’s just a pleasure and an honor, I finally got a little piece of the pie now and I’m excited.”

Event #66: $1000 WSOP.com ONLINE No-Limit Hold’em after Day 1 is led by Clayton “Starduck” Maguire. The event has a total of 1,247 participating players and it is still being played with only six players remaining.

Event #67: $111,111 High Roller for One Drop No-Limit Hold’em was conquered by one of our favorite Global Poker League players, 22-year-old Fedor Holz from Germany, and after collecting a huge $4,981,775 along with his first WSOP gold bracelet, he was heard saying “I just feel overwhelmed. I didn’t think it would be like this.”

Event #68: $10,000 MAIN EVENT No-Limit Hold’em Championship with 1733 entries so far, has started and at the end of Day 1A, Gary Sewell led the way. Then on Day 1B, Andrey Zaichenko led with a 292, 700 stack of chips in front of him.

So far this year’s WSOP has not disappointed us. In fact, it has provided all of us poker enthusiasts with a few surprises, not the least of which was Jason Mercier dropping to one knee and proposing to Natasha Barbour for the entire world to see.

The 2014 WSOP has entered into their history book more than a third of this year’s events and there is no denying that players from the U.S.A. have taken control, blowing away the competition at the Rio in Las Vegas. This year there were 65 bracelets to be awarded; thus far 23 of those have been snatched up with American players taking an overwhelming lead by slipping 20 of those bracelets on their wrists.

U.S. players have filled their bank accounts with $38, 059, 289.00 in winnings from a total of 2,720 cashes. The closest country now in distant second place is Canada with $1, 531, 605.00 with just over 270 cashes and no bracelets yet. The only other bracelet winners so far are Germany with two bracelets but only $972,205 and Belgium with one bracelet and just $660,793.

Here are the latest winners from the WSOP poker tables at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino: